Last Monday, when I was driving back from Brandon in the heavy rainstorm, I had a touching and reassuring experience along the road that needs telling before I forget it. I used #2 Highway to come back to Winnipeg and thought I had enough gas when I left the Wheat City. I stopped in Glenboro to let a deluge pass and meant to get some gas there, however, forgot.

Seems the bottom half of the Avenger’s tank empties quicker than the top! My gas gauge sat at empty about 40 km outside Winnipeg and though the diagnostic menu said I had 88 km to empty, I didn’t believe it because the little gas pump symbol was lit, too. I pulled into Starbuck, MB about 6:40 expecting little in the way of an open gas station. They have a Co-Op cardlock but I’m not a member.

The rain had let up and as I stood there pondering my next move, a little yellow sports car pulled into the lot. ‘Not from around here. Needs gas too,’ I thought, correctly. His car spelled out in big letters LOW FUEL. My plan was to pop over to the local hotel and see if any of the boys bending a few might have a Co-Op card and the friendlies to help out a stranger in need. The yellow sports car guy and his girlfriend, also Winnipeg-bound, were sceptical about my plan but I said, ‘Wait here, I’ll be right back.’ I drove the block and a half to the Starbuck Hotel, a fine establishment where I explained my plight to Lorelei who gladly asked the pub boys about cardlock. None of them had one.

”No problem,” she said. ”My dad has one and he lives in town.” Lorelei called her dad, explained the situation and told me to meet him at the Co-Op. His name is Len. I thanked her profusely and drove back to the pumps. As I expected, the yellow sports car was gone.

Two minutes later, Len pulls up in his half ton, all friendly and smiling. We chat about how much we don’t need the rain as he pumps $15 worth of regular into the Avenger. I give him a twenty and he reaches for change but I tell him to buy his buddies coffee in the morning on me. I thank him for coming to my rescue. He drove away in his half ton, feeling good because he helped a stranger in need. I drove away in my Avenger, feeling quickened by the benevolence of the human spirit and grateful I grew up in a small town. Thank you, Lorelei. Thank you, Len. Thank you, Starbuck.

Criddle/Vane House Guided Tour 3:55

Click pic to take my 3:55 tour of the 14-room house which was destroyed by arson in 2014.

Stone Alone out on Highway 21 2:16

To explore this house inside and out click pic

Portals to the Past 4:18

Beside the road, the haunted souls of the long gone find solace and sanctuary in tumbledowns, neglected and abandoned places that once danced with the rhythms of lives but now succumb and succumb. Click pic for 4:17 video

Mission Statement

As a professional writer, I shall honour the strategy that informs my client’s audience in a voice they trust and a style they understand.
As a personal writer, I shall honour the strategies defined by the resourcefulness of my mind, the waves of my heart and the wiles of my spirit.

Just This by Ken Wilber

In the heart of Emptiness there is a mysterious impulse, mysterious because there is actually nothing in the heart of Emptiness (for there is nothing in Emptiness, period). Yet there it is, this mysterious impulse, the impulse to…create. To sing, to shine, to radiate; to send forth, reach out and celebrate; to sing and shout and walk about; to effervesce and bubble over, this mysterious exuberance in the heart of Emptiness.

Emptiness empties itself of emptiness, and thus becomes Full, pregnant with all worlds, a fruition of the infinite impulse to play, hidden in the heart of your own deepest Self. If you rest in the Witness, settle back as I-I, and look very carefully for the Looker – if you turn within right now and try to see the Seer – you won’t see anything at all, for you cannot see the Seer. All you will find is a vast Freedom and Emptiness, in which the entire Kosmos is now arising. Out of the pure Emptiness that is your deepest suchness, all worlds arise. Your own impulse of looking has brought forth the universe, and here it resides in the vastness of all space which is to say, in the purity of your own primordial awareness. This has been obvious all along; this you have known all along. Just this, and nothing more, just this.

from "One Taste"

My Mission Statement

As a professional writer, I shall honour the strategy that informs my client’s audience in a voice they trust and a style they understand.
As a personal writer, I shall honour the strategies defined by the resourcefulness of my mind, the waves of my heart and the wiles of my spirit.